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Laptop on the road

We really haven't done any long trips. I download all the PQs to the laptop--since you can do up to 500 caches in a PQ, you can have pretty much every cache in the state in one file. GSAK gives you all the cache info and you can download waypoints to the GPSr, if you want.

You could generate PQs for the areas you will be traveling in--the only danger would be that the info might get out of date.

I have never looked into cell modems, but have a feeling they (and/or the service) is cost prohibitive.

A better plan, IMHO, is to have a wireless (WIFI) card in your laptop. There are "hot spots" in just about every town/city where you can jump on the Internet (do a google search for "wardriving" for more info and tools). Note that this may not be 100% legal, depending upon whose signal you are catching.

Many hotels, coffee houses, etc. have free wireless--many businesses and individuals have (purposely or foolishly) non-encrypted wireless routers. A quick jump on the Internet to check email and new caches, and you're good to go.

Oh yeah, do remember that if you can see *their* network, they can see *yours*--disabling file sharing on your HD (if you've enabled it for a home network) is a good idea before using public networks. Also, folks with "packet sniffers" can grab usernames and passwords from your transmissions (though they can do that in wired networks as well).

"Wardriving" really sounds interesting, but it may be a little technical for this old grey head. It sure looks like it would be good for a trip like the one we're planning for theLewiston area this week - there must be hotspots there.

We have mainly done day trips with our laptop...doing our PQs just before leaving so we have the most recent data. I do queries for certain areas and if I want a larger area I just merge them, one of the features of Watcher. If we are staying overnight, I have an AOL account, which I don't actually use much, but maintain for my children. It allows you to dial up from anywhere you can access a phone line though. We just finished a day trip through NH and picked up a couple of caches we would have missed without our laptop. I can't imagine going back to paper...except, of course, using the old, rainsoaked, marked-up Delorme.

Zire 71

I have been using a Palm Zire 71 for about 8 months. I really fills all my needs well. I have the registered version of Cachemate to use with PQ's. I bought DeLorme's Street Atlas Handheld ($39.00) and an expantion card to hold plenty of maps. I link the PDA and my E-trex Vista together with a cable I bought online and this gives me both moving maps as well as the ability to mark a location ( such as a cache waypoint) on the map thus giving me a road to get to a cache. Many times in unfamiliar territory I didn't know the roads well enough to get close without going around in circles. This took care of the problem. The Zire 71 also has a built in camera, letting me get a snapshot of the cache in a good size to post in my gallery. The Zire 71 has been replaced by the 72, but I'm sure many place have 71 on clearance. Making it a great time to buy. The lithium batteries onboard seem to have a really good lasting time. If turned on accidently they will eventually kill it. All in all I've had great luck with it. The avatar of my dog Jock was taken with it. It's been cropped way down so it does appear a little grainy. Still not too bad.